


They Shall, From Time to Time…

by ImpishTubist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual!Lestrade/John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, Lestrade, and the state of their union. A series of vignettes. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sidney Sussex (SidneySussex)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidneySussex/gifts).



> Written for the very wonderful Sidney Sussex
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> The State of the Union is an annual address given to Congress by the American President, as dictated in the US Constitution. The first sentence of that particular section begins, “He shall from time to time…” 

The first thing John says when Lestrade proposes marriage is, “Christ, you really are always this mad, aren’t you?”

To be fair, he is sitting in a pool of his own blood and Lestrade is little better off, having received a nasty blow to the head from the man who had just shot John in the arm. The gunshot wound is superficial, apart from the fact that it’s gushing blood, but the paramedics milling around them are doing a fairly good job of staunching the flow. Lestrade has a cold compress pressed to his forehead and likely he’ll have a lump there in the morning large enough to rival Everest. But they are alive and gloriously giddy after the wild chase, which is more than can be said for the man they had been after. He hadn’t lived long enough to enjoy the fact that he’d wounded his two pursuers; Sherlock had made sure of that before quickly vanishing.

“Just about,” Lestrade says breathlessly, and they both dissolve into helpless laughter. The paramedics exchange looks but say nothing more than, “Hold still, sirs.”

The scene is all-too-familiar, and so utterly ridiculous that it makes John’s head ache. It has only been a year since the bombing at the pool. It has only been a year since Lestrade dug first Sherlock and then John out of the rubble with his bare hands and minimal help from his incredulous team. The two flatmates had been conscious and largely unhurt, apart from some nasty lacerations and ugly bruises, and the three of them had been flooded with adrenaline and half-crazed with relief. And Lestrade had gripped John by the shoulders, looking utterly astounded that the man awake and well and _whole_ , and the question had leaped from his lips at the same moment it did John’s.

 _  
  
Do you want –   
_

_  
Would you like –   
_

And they had laughed then, too, holding one another at arm’s length, until finally John said, “Oh, God, yes.”

He repeats those words now, between laughs but Lestrade knows that he’s sincere. He makes a grab for John’s hand and holds it tightly in his own. 

“What’s it gonna take for you to bring up children, then?” John wheezes. “Your own funeral?”

Lestrade snorts and squeezes the hand.

“Who needs children,” he says, “when one has Sherlock?”

xxxx

Mrs. Hudson is the first person anyone informs, and she goes from overjoyed to confused as John quickly fills her in on the details of the impending union.

“But,” she protests, “you’re getting _married_.”

“Yes,” John agrees with a gentle smile. “Just not moving in together.”

He leaves her, utterly dumbfounded, on the landing, and continues up the stairs to the flat.

xxxx

Technically, Mycroft is the first person outside the couple to hear the news (surveillance has its unending uses), but once he finds out that it will not interfere with Dr. Watson’s association with his brother, he sees no reason to talk to the happy couple in person. He arranges to have flowers sent and decides that, should he receive an invitation, he will attend the ceremony. It will be an excuse, at least, to see Sherlock.

xxxx

Sherlock hears the news second (which isn’t intentional) and from Lestrade (which is). He subjects the DI to a horribly graphic version of the hurt-my-flatmate-and-you-won’t-live-long-enough-to-regret-it talk and while Lestrade isn’t sure that one can actually _do_ that to eyeballs, he isn’t particularly keen on finding out. 

But then, as Lestrade makes to leave, Sherlock stops him with a brush of fingers against his elbow (because only Sherlock has ever been able to get away with that) and asks, uncharacteristically, “Do you love him?”

It hasn’t occurred to Lestrade that Sherlock thinks about such matters, or considers them to be of importance. The detective knows that other people put stock in such emotions, but Lestrade has always assumed that it doesn’t matter to the man, one way or another, how those closest to him are treated. 

He’s wrong. And he’s all right with that. 

“Yes,” Lestrade tells him. Sherlock nods, and then sees him out the door. 

xxxx

Molly Hooper coos – _coos_ – when she hears (Sherlock lets it slip as he’s in the morgue, collecting fingernails for an experiment), and Sarah Sawyer gives John an exuberant hug. Donovan and Anderson take Lestrade out for a drink one Friday night in celebration, and the conversation inevitably comes around to the future. He sighs behind his glass and tells them that, really, nothing’s changing. John’s going to stay at 221B; Lestrade is perfectly happy in his own place, which he’s had for fifteen years. 

“But,” Sally says slowly, “you’re getting _married_.”

Lestrade doesn’t understand why everyone sees the need to point out the obvious, but he merely smiles and offers to buy the next round. He thinks the matter is closed and hopes that neither of his officers will remember in the morning, because these aren’t questions he feels like fielding at a crime scene. 

Unfortunately, Sally has an impeccable memory and the next afternoon, as forensics is collecting evidence from a double-murder, she brings him a cup of coffee (which is unusual in itself and should have raised alarm bells in his mind) and asks, “If you don’t mind my asking, sir – what’s the point of it all?”

“Pardon?” Lestrade says, truly not following – mostly because he’s being distracted by the glorious warmth that spreads through his frigid fingers as he grips the cup. 

“You said it yourself – nothing’s changing. You don’t live together, you _won’t_ live together, and going by the hours you keep I doubt you’re sleeping together, either. So why go around telling everyone you’re getting married?”

“Because we _are_ ,” Lestrade says through gritted teeth and Sally, normally very good about picking up on others’ irritation, blunders on ahead. 

“I mean, if he wants to dispel all those rumors about him and Freak, I can think of better ways to go about doing it. No use dragging you into something that isn’t real,” she says, and is about to continue but Lestrade is gripping his cup so tightly that it crumples and hot liquid spills over both their shoes.

“Yes, thank you for your input, Donovan,” he says tightly, hand stinging and jaw so tight it feels like it’ll break. She picks up on his anger then, and scurries off before he can manage another word.  

He mentions the conversation to John some days later, when his fury finally simmers down enough for him to be able to get the words past his throat. They assure one another that it means nothing; that the words spoken by their friends and acquaintances spring from ignorance and nothing more. 

Ten months later they are married, and the whole thing goes off without a hitch – well, if one were to ignore the exploding cake and fainting guests, though those incidents were unrelated and, surprisingly, had nothing to do with Sherlock.

And yet even beyond that, the words linger. There are still questioning glances and hesitant labels – _and this is his, er, husband, I suppose_ – and brows that furrow in puzzlement at the unusual arrangement.           

Lestrade wonders what it is others have that they perceive him to lack. 

John wonders why they all expect him to justify marrying a man he loves.

And they begin, subconsciously, to look for validity in their day-to-day: in the deep quiet of night and the bustling of morning; in the solemnity of the crime scene and the calm of the home. 

They look for what makes it _real_.

xxxx

John hates to cook.

It’s a Friday night and they’re preparing dinner in Lestrade’s kitchen. The older man is on the phone with one of his brother’s five kids and keeps the mobile clamped between his ear and shoulder so that he can tend to a simmering pot as he talks. John is attempting to make himself useful and keeps watch over a pot of what is supposed to be boiling water, but really is just water-sitting-there-looking-nice.

“Yes, Addy,” Lestrade says patiently; he’s talking to one of the younger ones. “I’ll be there. John?” Lestrade glances over his shoulder; John gives him a nod. “Yeah, John’ll be there, too. He wouldn’t miss your birthday. Oh, really? Well, I’ll tell him.” Lestrade closes a hand over the receiver and mouths, “Pony.”

John snorts and shakes his head. 

“He’ll see what he can do,” Lestrade tells the girl, and they banter for a few more moments before Lestrade’s brother comes back on the line and the tone turns a good deal more somber. 

“How’s your mum?” John asks when he finally rings off. Lestrade shakes his head and adds pepper to the pot. 

“Not well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, Johnny. So’m I.” He swipes a bit of sauce from the spoon he has been stirring with and then holds it out to John. “Here, tell me if this is too spicy for you.”

 John licks the sauce from his finger and gives a thumbs up. Lestrade turns down the flame on the stove and shakes his head, laughing. 

“One of these days,” he says, brandishing the spoon at John, “I’m going to whip those taste buds of yours into shape.” He pauses a moment, considering. “I should also probably teach you how to boil water and make toast while I’m at it.”

“Hey!” John says indignantly, flicking his ear in retaliation. “I’m capable of _that_ much, at least.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Lestrade concedes, and then when he thinks John isn’t listening he adds, “Just barely, though.”

This time he’s ready for the finger that lashes out to poke him in the side, and the water in John’s pot boils over because he’s too busy defending himself against Lestrade’s counter-attack as the small war spills over into the living room. They salvage what they can of dinner later on, once they finally stop for breath, and Lestrade doesn’t let him live it down for weeks – couldn’t even manage to boil _water_ , he tells people.

John still hates to cook, but he loves doing it with Lestrade.

xxxx

Lestrade doles out affection like a father with dozens of children.

He’s always ready with a clap on the shoulder; a squeeze at the elbow; a quick hug; even a brief cup of the cheek (though that gesture is reserved for John and John alone, and the doctor relishes it). He tends to dislike, however, being on the receiving end of such physical contact, which John ended up discovering fairly early on but only after blundering through a series of what he felt were affectionate gestures. Lestrade had kept his silence for three weeks before breaking down and bringing the little touches to a grinding halt. He admitted along the way that he, much like Sherlock, is quite disinterested in sex and doesn’t abide unexpected contact. 

John knows that Lestrade expected him to leave as others have left –but then, John’s never been very good at keeping with others’ expectations.

They tend to keep to separate rooms when John stays over and have only shared a bed a handful of times, most of which revolved around John’s around John’s nightmares and are nights the doctor would rather sooner forget, even though he spent the latter parts of them curled in Lestrade’s arms. Lestrade understands; if the cries that wake him are anything to go by, he’d also erase those memories if given half the chance. He wishes, fervently, that he were the one with the nightmares.Anything to keep them from John.

xxxx

John most looks forward to mornings in Lestrade’s kitchen.

Those early hours are the times when Lestrade gladly accepts – even seeks – the affection that John is only too willing to offer. The doctor always ends up rising second (he’s still in the habit of waking early but the hours Lestrade keeps should be considered criminal) and then joins his partner in the kitchen, where the older man is simultaneously making tea and working on his laptop. He’s greeted with a brush of lips against his temple and a warm smile before Lestrade turns back to his typing, and after downing a cup of tea John wraps his arms loosely around Lestrade from behind and rests his head on the man’s shoulder. He allows himself to be lulled into a light doze by the sound of sizzling food and the steady _click_ of fingers on keys. Lestrade drops kisses onto John’s arms, eyes glued to his screen, and between paragraphs he runs his fingers through the sandy mop of hair. 

It’s the kind of peace that Sherlock would find boring.

It’s the kind of peace that John lost sight of long ago, left behind when he departed for an exotic war in a far-off land.

It’s the kind of peace Lestrade wishes he could bring his husband on a regular basis, but for right now he’ll settle for these mornings.

xxxx

Lestrade’s first name is Greg, but no one ever calls him by it. John tried it out once, but the name felt foreign on his tongue and, while it fit the man, something in his expression had shifted as soon as the word left John’s lips. 

The DI tends to only go by the one name, and so it comes to take on a variety of meanings. In the daytime, on the lips of his officers, it’s a title; a rank; said (usually) with the utmost respect. Sherlock tosses it around carelessly, like a verbal weapon, striking and prodding and cutting with sharp words born out of irritation at the way Lestrade conducts his investigations. In the evenings, though, and wrapped in John’s warm voice, the name becomes gentle; affectionate; almost an endearment.

“Why do you call him by his last name?” Sarah asks him one day. They’re out at lunch, and up until that moment had been discussing the particulars of the clinic. John blinks at the abrupt shift in conversation. 

“Sorry?”

“Greg,” she prompts. He must look confused, because her tone takes on a teasing note. “You know, the man you’ve married? Why don’t you call him by his first name?”

John catches the snappy _because it’s his name_ before it can slip from his throat and instead says, “He, er, really isn’t fond of it. I dunno. I’ve never really called him anything else.”

“Never?” she says incredulously and he knows what’s coming next. “Not even – you know…”

“No, I don’t know, Sarah,” he says in irritation. “What?”

She senses the dangerous edge to his voice and backs off the line of questioning entirely, returning to her meal. John returns to his drink and his gaze drifts to the window.  

“It’s a nice name,” he’d said that night, the first time it had graced his lips, because he’d been confused about the reaction it evoked. 

“As they go,” Lestrade had replied, and his face had darkened. “And, if I can help it, the only thing I’ll ever share with my father. Sherlock and I have that much in common, at least. It’s not steady ground to stand on, but it’s as good as they come.”

John had nodded then as he nods now when the topic comes up, because there are many things they discuss; there are a few they do not. There are years, John knows, that he isn’t privy to. There are years that Lestrade and Sherlock share and dark paths they’ve walked together, and though John has put some pieces together he knows he’ll never figure all of it out. Sherlock isn’t fond of people forcing him to take them into his confidence and Lestrade is fierce in his protection of the younger man. 

But John tries not to call him _Greg_ anymore. It seems the least he can do.

xxxx

There are only three people on the planet who can get away with calling Doctor John Watson “Johnny.”

One of them is, of course, his mother. The second is his sister, and he doesn’t enjoy hearing it from her so much as he barely tolerates it out of sense of duty. 

Lestrade is the third. He isn’t one for endearments or nicknames, but the diminutive slips out accidentally one day during a moment of deep affection and sticks fast.

 John decides that, on Lestrade’s tongue, the nickname is not tolerable – it’s preferred. 

xxxx

Lestrade can’t protect John.

He can’t protect him from Sherlock’s wild life (not that he would try), nor can he protect him from uncertainties at work or from his sister’s chaos. 

He can’t even keep John from the demons that interrupt his sleep and wonders, as he fails to protect John even at home, what use he is to the man at all. 

Lestrade isn’t able to speak to changes in the frequency or severity of John’s nightmares, because he didn’t know John in the first weeks after he was invalided home from the war. All he knows is the John of Baker Street, the John who is centered by Sherlock’s presence, and nightmares continue to interrupt this John’s sleep as they did the John of before-Baker-Street. And while Sherlock has one way of bringing John peace, Lestrade has another, because they are neither of them strangers to the cruel mental landscapes John walks in his sleep.

“Can’t sleep?” 

“No.”

It’s a Tuesday night – well, Wednesday morning at this point – and Lestrade is sitting on the floor in his living room, back against the sofa, legs outstretched and feet crossed at the ankles. 

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly to John, who is standing in the doorway. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Not at all,” the doctor replies. His hair is rumpled and his eyes are puffy with the lateness of the hour. He’s dressed in pajamas and a jumper, feet bare and undoubtedly cold against the wood floor. He crosses the room and lowers himself easily next to Lestrade. “I didn’t know you could play.”

“What, this thing?” Lestrade says, indicating the instrument in his arms. “I used to. Haven’t touched it on a regular basis in years, though.”

John brushes his hand against the wood of the guitar. “Why not?”

“I dunno. Sort of – drifted away from it, I suppose.”

“And now you’re drifting back,” John says with a smile. “It sounded beautiful, what you were playing just now.”

“You’re far too generous. And likely tone deaf.” In truth, Lestrade is secretly pleased with the praise, even though he knows his husband is being kind – he played that tune by ear alone, from a song he had heard on the radio on his way into work that morning and which had stuck with him the whole day. He finds himself, even now, tapping a foot to the rhythm that plays on a loop in his head. 

“There _was_ a reason why I stopped the clarinet,” John says with a small smile, going along with the light teasing at his expense. But the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and confirms for Lestrade what he already suspected. It’s rare for John to wake in the middle of the night, and rarer still for him to leave the bed. 

“Nightmare?” he guesses in a low voice, and watches John’s features cloud over. 

“Yeah,” John admits, and then attempts a reassuring smile. It’s wholly unconvincing. “No worse than usual, though.”

“Here, let me put this away and I’ll come –”

“No.” John holds out his hands to stop him. “No, don’t, please. I think I’ll just stay here for a bit.”

He stretches out on the floor, face to the ceiling, and folds his hands across his chest. Lestrade brushes the back of his hand against a stubbled cheek and whispers, “All right.”

Lestrade repositions the instrument on his lap, touches fingers to strings, and strikes up a low, melancholy tune. He hums along and every few stanzas he injects a word or phrase as he remembers it. He gets most of them right – he hasn’t heard the song itself since the summer of ’81, so that’s quite the feat – and the words he does botch at least bring a smile to John’s lips. 

John is fast asleep when he next looks around, one hand fallen to the floor and face gone lax. His head tilts away from Lestrade, and his mouth is slightly open. 

Lestrade sets the instrument aside and bends to press a light kiss to his forehead.

“Sleep well, Johnny.” 

It’s a command as much as a prayer.

xxxx

John can’t keep Lestrade safe. 

They’re at the hospital, and Lestrade has been stabbed. It’s never happened to him before, and the part of his mind that is hazy and dull with painkillers finds the whole experience rather interesting. The clear part of his brain that still feels the pain, still registers John’s deathly-white face, realizes that this is not the best reaction to have and probably shouldn’t be mentioned aloud. 

John holds one of Lestrade’s hands in both of his and watches as the man wavers between consciousness and foggy sleep. They speak little and he finds himself having the same conversation more than once with the medicine-laden man. 

“What happened?” Lestrade slurs at around four in the afternoon. It’s the third time that day he’s asked that question; John gives the same, tight-lipped answer. 

“You were stabbed.”

“Hm.” Lestrade wets cracked lips and says slowly, “How’d that happen?”

“Suspect you were chasing had a knife,” John says tightly, and he knows he shouldn’t let the irritation slip through but his stress has always morphed itself into anger. “It was foolish, Greg.”

“I know.”

“So why’d you do it?”

Lestrade blinks blearily at him. “Someone had to.”

“Horseshit,” John snaps. 

Lestrade reaches out and places a hand on John’s knee. It’s a familiar gesture, meaning that they’ll talk later, and he falls asleep again before John can whisper that he’s sorry for the outburst.

So John keeps watch that night, one hand resting lightly on Lestrade’s chest just below where the knife punched through. That wound; that damned wound. He couldn’t keep Lestrade from receiving it; he can’t keep him from danger in the future. 

Really, it seems, he’s hardly any use to the man at all.

xxxx

Lestrade doesn’t often stay the night at 221B.

The first time had been the night after the bombing at the pool – he’d stayed then, though none of them had slept. He had gotten John and Sherlock safely back to the flat and up the stairs where they crowded into Sherlock’s bathroom because it was closest and tended one another’s injuries. They had been jittery for hours after that, and had eventually ended up in the living room, wearing borrowed clothes and makeshift bandages. Sherlock had worked off his adrenaline with an inordinate amount of pacing; John, seated next to Lestrade on the sofa, had bounced his leg continuously for at least three hours.

 Lestrade had channeled his adrenaline into a state of over-alertness and kept a fierce eye on the two of them. No one went anywhere alone for the rest of the night, and by the time dawn had broken they were beginning to crash from the high. They had all ended up on the sofa, in the end, with Lestrade in the middle and doing a very good job of acting like a pillow. Sherlock had dropped off first, in mid-sentence, head drooping to rest on top of Lestrade’s. He’d shared a laugh with John over that and the two of them were able to adjust the gangly man before John fell asleep, too. And Lestrade had kept watch that night – that morning – over both of them. 

In the nearly two years since, he can still count on both hands the number of times he has stayed over at the flat. Usually when he does it’s because he’s working on a case with Sherlock and the time escapes from them. One moment John is giving his good nights; the next, it’s four in the morning and the tea’s gone stone cold.

But there are nights, now and again, when all John and Lestrade need – when all they want – is one another, and it doesn’t matter where they are. Tonight they’ve ended up at 221B, and the day hasn’t been particularly exceptional. Lestrade’s was bookended by meetings and paperwork. The most exciting thing that happened to John was his lunch exploding in the microwave at work – and by exciting, he means _bloody annoying_. Sherlock is out, doing whatever it is Sherlock does when he wanders the streets of London. 

“D’you happen to know what island nation’s capital is Apia?”

“Er –” John pauses his typing, thinking. “Have you got a letter for me?”

“Starts with an ‘S.’ Five letters total,” Lestrade replies, tapping his pen against his teeth. He keeps a routine that is backwards from the rest of society, preferring to read the papers at night when he can take the time to properly go through them. (He also, if given the choice, would have breakfast foods at dinnertime, but John despises eggs for their texture and syrup for being too sweet, so it isn’t often that he gets to indulge in that particular habit).

 His routine is so unchanging on nights when he isn’t working that it makes John smile – the crossword means that Lestrade’s about half an hour away from bed.

“Oh! Try Samoa.”

There is a slight pause, and then: “Ah, perfect! Thanks.”

They retire early, both to John’s room. Sometimes, depending on his mood, Lestrade will take the sofa; more often than not, they end up in John’s bed, and this night is no different. They start the night apart; by morning, John wakes with Lestrade’s arms securely around him. 

“How long’ve you been awake?”

“Not long,” Lestrade lies, because he’s been using the past fifteen minutes to study the contours of John’s face in sleep. John stretches languidly and then tucks himself further into the cocoon that Lestrade has created with his body. 

“Not planning on getting up, I take it?” Lestrade teases. 

“Wake me sometime next week, yeah?”

“Right-o.” Lestrade brushes his lips against the shell of John’s ear. He’s never felt this comfortable around another person, not even Sherlock, and thinks he can actually – maybe – quite get used to this.

“You’re _thinking_ ,” John mutters accusingly into his chest, and rolls away, stuffing a pillow over his head. “It’s six in the morning and you’re thinking. And you’re _loud_ about it, too.”

Lestrade laughs, openly, and tugs John back over to his side of the bed. The man feigns reluctance, but within minutes he’s dropped off again and is snoring lightly into Lestrade’s shoulder. 

Yes, he can definitely get used to this. 


	2. Chapter 2

John loves the snow.

Lestrade never would have guessed it, going by how tightly John wraps himself in jumpers even while indoors and how he keeps a fire going at the flat three seasons out of the four.

But come the first snow of that year, as with the previous two, he receives a text from the young doctor:

 _Look outside_.

Lestrade smiles at that, and John’s cheer propels him through the rest of the day, through two awful crime scenes _(though they’re all awful, aren’t they?)_ and a mound of paperwork.

“We’re going sledding tonight,” John announces when Lestrade calls that evening.

“Honestly, John,” he can hear Sherlock say clearly in the background, “you are no longer seven. I fail to see what is so exciting about hurling oneself down a hill on a piece of plastic.”

“And _that_ ,” John says pointedly, “is why we’re going. He’s never been before, and I can’t live with a man who doesn’t appreciate sledding.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Lestrade tells him with a small smile, and he hears Sherlock give a huff of indignation as he realizes that his only other potential ally has chosen a different side. “I’ve never been able to convince him of its benefits. Perhaps you’ll be more successful.”

“When I said we,” John says as Sherlock begins to bang unnecessarily around the kitchen. “I was including you.”

“Yeah, I was afraid you were gonna say that,” Lestrade mutters, fishing his car keys out of his pocket. “Is this a part of ‘love me, love my flatmate’?”

“You already love him,” John says quietly, sounding amused.

Lestrade sighs and unlocks his car, tossing his bag in the back. “God help me, yeah, I do.”

“So you’ll come?”

Lestrade snorts. “Sherlock on a sled? Wouldn’t miss that one for anything.”

“Bring a camera.”

“Already planning on it,” he says. “What time d’you want me over?”

“Whenever you can manage it. Sherlock’s just – _shit_ , Sherlock, what the _hell_ did you just do?”

“Gotta run?” Lestrade asks, slightly concerned as a sudden hissing noise fills the background.

“Yeah, sorry, listen – just come over whenever you feel like it. And, er, might want to bring a gas mask with you. God, where is that coming from, Sherlock?”

God, but how he loves those two.

xxxx

Every once in a while, Lestrade has a day that he simply can’t shake.

Once, it’d been Sherlock (though he wasn’t _Sherlock_ then, not to Lestrade - he'd just been a sorry kid) lying facedown in a pool of his own blood.

Another time, it had been a young woman, murdered and her child stolen. They’d never found the girl.

Five years ago, it had been a young boy – the sole survivor of a family of four.

Tonight, it’s little Annie Boland.

Lestrade arrives home late _(always late, shouldn’t even be notable now)_ and drags himself up the stairs to his flat. His feet are stinging, there’s an ache beginning to take root behind his eyes, and his knuckles are cracked and bleeding. He gets himself into the bathroom and, with stiff fingers, discards his jacket and button-down. He avoids looking in the mirror, because he knows what he’ll see – his father at sixty, worn and grey, deep swipes of purple under his eyes and that same cruel mouth.

He strips down to his plain t-shirt and runs his hands under the tap, as hot as he can stand it, until every trace of blood is scrubbed out from under his fingernails and his hands are painfully swollen from the heat. He washes his face and the grime from his hair and then sinks down onto the closed lid of the toilet, towel slung across the back of his neck and water trickling into his eyes. He rests his elbows on his knees and covers his face with his hands in a poor attempt to block out the light.

Migraines: another thing he shares with Sherlock.

She’d been too young, that child – but then again, they all were.

She’d been too pale.

She’d been too still.

There is a rustling in the doorway, and he is pulled from his brooding.

“I said not to come over, Johnny,” Lestrade says in a hoarse voice, grabbing the towel off his neck and swiping at his face.

“Yes,” John says. “You did.”

He switches off the bathroom light – _thank you_ – and pads softly across the floor to kneel before Lestrade. He places his hands on the man’s knees and whispers, “I love you a little too much to simply take you at your word. What’s happened?”

Lestrade manages little more that night than, “Love you, too,” but it doesn’t matter because John is _there_. There are very few things in this world he can be sure of – _parents won’t always love their children; children won’t always outlive their parents_ – but John is for always.

John is constant.

John is _real_.

xxxx

They are, at times, complete opposites of one another.

Lestrade is patient – utterly, maddeningly so. He ignores the raised brows and the disbelieving smirks and the shrug of shoulders that dismisses all that they are to one another.

John takes on each one as though it’s his personal burden to carry and they weigh him down, bending him past his breaking point. And when he finally snaps, it isn’t in response to anything in particular. It isn’t to someone who has been degrading, like Anderson, or flippant, like Donovan. In fact, the person who bears the initial brunt of his anger is the one who never questioned the relationship; never doubted that it was real.

It’s a Monday night and he’s exhausted, obnoxiously so, and doesn’t know how much longer he can go about defending his life to the world at large. And when he steps through the door of the flat, his first time home in over twenty-four hours due to overflow at the clinic and a double-homicide, the first thing he hears is his name.

And he breaks.

“John -”

“Oh, what now?” John snaps furiously. “I married him because I love him. No, we’re not moving in together. No, we’re not having sex. Not that it’s any business of yours, of course, but it seems as though you all require these _damn_ explanations.” He sighs and rubs his forehead and when he finally works up the courage to actually look Sherlock in the face, he notes that the man has raised an eyebrow and is looking slightly bemused.

“Fascinating, John,” he says, and John can’t tell whether Sherlock has just managed sarcasm or if he truly does find it fascinating. He’s not sure which option is more horrifying.

“You – you weren’t going to ask about the marriage, were you?”

“I assure you, I have little interest in such mundane aspects of your life.”

“Right. Thanks. Some friend you are.”

“If I recall, you just now became angry when you thought I was going to inquire about your – sex life,” Sherlock points out, lip curling at the end of the sentence.

“Yeah, you’re right, of course. Sorry. What is it you were going to ask?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I need my phone. It’s in the bedroom.”

John sighs, mutters something about going out, and escapes from the living room.

He’s sitting on the fire escape when Lestrade arrives. The man slips through the open living room window and closes it behind him; through the glass, John sees Sherlock in the kitchen, scribbling furiously in a notebook.

“What are you doing here?” he says as the DI takes a seat on the cool metal. He’s dressed still in his good suit and tie, having come directly from a charity benefit that John would have attended at his side if not for the sudden change in shifts at the clinic. Secretly, John was glad for the switch – it gave him a night away from all the questions. He almost immediately feels a pang at the thought, though, because it means that Lestrade had to face them alone.

They are good apart; they are better together. Theirs is a small position to defend, and it is easier to protect the corner of the world that they have carved out for themselves when standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Sherlock summoned me,” Lestrade tells him, waving his phone. “His exact text was, _Flatmate gone ‘round the bend. Require assistance._ ”

John snorts and tries to be angry with the detective. He fails.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Lestrade says in a low voice.

John shrugs his shoulders. “It’s nothing you don’t know already. Nothing you haven’t gone through as well.”

“I’d like to make it better.”

“You already do,” John tells him quietly. He reaches out reflexively and takes Lestrade’s hand, swiping his thumb soothingly across the back of it for several moments before realizing his mistake. He yanks his hand away with a soft curse and folds his hands tightly in his lap, casting a glare to the street below so that he won’t have to look Lestrade in the eye. He’s usually so good, so careful about catching himself -

“Hey,” Lestrade says softly, and then there is a warm hand on his back. “Relax, Johnny. ‘s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” John says angrily, but the fury is directed inward. “I didn’t mean – I know you don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it when it’s unexpected,” Lestrade says firmly, because this is a conversation they have had before and it isn’t like John to be so unsure of himself. “I especially don’t like it when it’s used as a prelude to something more. But with you it’s neither; you can hold my hand anytime you like. You know that.”

“Yeah, I – I do know.”

“So stop acting so panicked, yeah? Everything’s fine, and damn what the others say. _We’re_ fine.”

John grabs for the hand again clutches it in his own, channeling the tension of the past few hours. Lestrade accepts the burden gladly, and wraps his free hand around their clenched ones.

“How was the benefit?” John asks eventually, when he can trust himself to speak. “You look good, by the way. Rather wonderful, in fact.”

“Thanks, Johnny. And it went well, I think. Everyone missed you.” He leans over and presses a kiss to the corner of John’s mouth. “’specially me. How was the surgery?”

“Have you ever seen a three-year-old with three puzzle pieces shoved up his nose?”

Lestrade looks aghast.

“Yeah, neither had I ‘til today.” John gives a small smile. “Never a dull moment for John Watson, it seems.”

“So it does. Oh, speaking of dull – Sherlock’s using one of your jumpers for something. I only just now remembered.”

“Yeah,” John says with a wave of his hand, “it’s an old one. He’s testing the material for – I forget what. Tendency to hold bloodstains or something rubbish like that.”

“Hmm. Well, so long as he doesn’t blow the kitchen up again. That was a nightmare.” Lestrade withdraws his hand from John’s and holds out his arm; John accepts the invitation gratefully and sinks against Lestrade’s side, leaning his head against the man’s shoulder. “I brought milk, by the way. For tomorrow morning, so long as Sherlock doesn’t get to it first.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Lestrade rests his chin on top of John’s head, gazing out across the rooftops. “Seems only fair; I used the last of it this morning.”

“Thanks. I don’t suppose –”

“I got beans as well,” Lestrade says, and there is a smile in his voice. “As well as something proper to make for dinner next time we’re both home. You can’t live off beans.”

“Watch me.”

They laugh, and Lestrade kisses him again (this time on the nose).

xxxx

They look for validity in the steady plod of the day-to-day.

They look for what makes it real.

They find only each other, and that is enough.


End file.
